The Horse Goddess (Celtic World of Morgan Llywelyn) Page 2

  She turned and turned like a hungry child seeking the mother’s nipple, and the ache went with her. She surrendered to it. She collapsed into this wonderful soft swirling sensation with its colors and odors and a faraway ringing of bells—were they the little bronze bells the women wore on their ankles? Did it matter? How delightful to be cushioned in this new way and feel a reasonless happiness glowing through her flesh. She smiled. She laughed softly to herself. She shook her head so the weight of her braids whipped around her and she was not afraid.

  The hot smoky air felt good on her bare skin, and the lightning flashes of pain as the antler kissed her meant nothing; they could not hurt her. She was sweating profusely and the close air of the lodge made her wish she had more clothes to take off, take off her very skin, break free of whatever it was that was pressing in on her, pressing …

  She was very dizzy. The drum was beating and the bells were tinkling and the gutuiters were singing in faraway voices. A wave of nausea shook her and she closed her eyes for a heartbeat, feeling her balance desert her as she did so. She stumbled forward, throwing out her hands, expecting the priest to break her fall, but Kernunnos was no longer there. He was behind her now, prodding cruelly between her legs, and the pain was too intense to be denied. She was on her hands and knees and he was hurting her, hurting her … she chewed her lips to keep from crying out. With an incredible effort she managed to stagger to her feet and face him, refusing to be savaged from behind.

  The prong slashed like a knife across her breasts.

  The shapechanger stared at her. His lips were drawn back from his teeth into an animal’s snarl, and he was singing a high-pitched ululation that changed and became the cry of wolves on a winter night, far off in some snow-filled valley. No one who heard that cry could escape the thrill of fear that followed the wolf’s passage down countless generations. The wolf sang of wisdom, of loneliness and freedom, reminding men huddled in their lodges that there were wiser spirits in the world—and better hunters.

  The shapechanger looked at Epona through a wolf’s face. The animal itself seemed to stand before her, marking her for its prey. To her surprise, in that desperate moment some inner prompting came to her, as clear and sharp as a human voice speaking. With a nod of understanding, Epona looked into the terrifying visage of the shapechanger and drew her own lips back from her teeth, matching him snarl for snarl.

  Kernunnos laughed.

  The women seized her and lowered her to the ground. One sat on her chest and the other two spread her legs wide so the priest could dance between them. The chanting became muted as Kernunnos invoked the names of the spirits of tree and stone and earth, calling on them all to witness the ritual and accept the girl’s passage to the nextlife. When he sang the names of the water spirits the women wailed in chorus, spitting into the palms of their hands and rubbing the liquid on Epona’s skin. When he called upon the fire Tena gave a great cry and light blazed up in the lodge.

  Epona felt very far away from herself. She waited passively now, almost indifferently, as Kernunnos squatted between her spread legs and deftly guided the sacred horn to the entrance of her body. The priest closed his eyes and sang the song of the gateway; he demanded admittance for the spirit of life. As the chant rose in power the women moaned and fell silent. The voice of Kernunnos shrilled upward into a final ringing note and one exquisite stab of pain lanced through Epona.

  The women shouted in triumph.

  The girl lay panting on the floor. They did not hold her now; they stood at a respectful distance, smiling down, and Nematona extended a hand to help her to her feet. Tena and Uiska, Voice of the Waters, came closer to caress her fondly. It hurt to move but she would not let them see her wince. Why give way to pain now, when the worst was over? She was surprised to realize the smoke had cleared away completely, and the lodge of the priest was just a warm room with a friendly fire blazing in the circular firepit.

  She stood swaying, vaguely aware that the women were sponging her body with heated water. As her vision cleared, she realized the priest’s lodge was far different from the luxuriously furnished home of the lord of the tribe. The dwelling of Kernunnos resembled an animal’s lair.

  Every bedshelf was covered, not with soft fur robes, but with whole skins bearing feet and tails. The heads had polished pebbles for eyes. The hides of larger animals, such as stag and bear, were pulled into lifelike postures by leather thongs suspended from the lodgepoles that supported the thatched roof. Dead birds, their bodies gutted and packed with salt, roosted in every crevice and spread their wings against the walls in startlingly lifelike flight. Rams’ horns and stags’ antlers were fastened on every available surface, creating a forest of horns. Boars’ tusks and the bleached skulls of wolves were lined up around the hearthstone, crowded amid the pots and jars.

  Only the priest was missing. Epona could not remember his leaving; he was just not there anymore.

  The three women moved around her, kneading her flesh with melted fat, making little clucking sounds when her thighs quivered involuntarily. “You will be all right now,” said Tena in her hot quick voice. “You are a woman thisnight, and from now on your spirit will guide you wisely. You passed your test very well.”

  It was the first time one of the priesthood had spoken to her as an adult. She tried to answer in a voice too quavery to trust, then cleared her throat and tried again.

  “It wasn’t bad. It didn’t hurt,” she told them.

  The gutuiters exchanged glances of approval.

  “You are brave,” said Nematona. “You have proven fit to be the mother of warriors.”

  What was it Suleva had said? “You must not show fear. An awful thing will happen.” Suleva, She Who Bears Only Daughters.

  Epona flushed with pride, but the insatiable curiosity that was part of her nature prompted her to ask, “Why is it so important to bear warriors? We are never attacked here in the Blue Mountains.”

  “Not in your lifetime, no.” Nematona passed her knife hand across her eyes in the classic sign of negation. “But that is only because the battle reputation of Toutorix discourages other tribes from trying to capture the Salt Mountain. Yet we have fought before, and doubtless will again. We must all be capable of defending what is ours.

  “But the children you bear will never have to fight for the Salt Mountain, Epona, because they will not be born here. Men will come from distant tribes of the people and give Toutorix many gifts in order to ask for you as wife. You will be highly prized, not only because you come from the chief’s lodge but also because you are a strong, healthy young woman with courage to pass on to your sons—sons who will take their first meat from the tip of your husband’s sword and serve as warriors in his tribe, wherever that may be.”

  Nematona’s words reminded the girl of another cause for concern, now that the ritual of woman-making was completed. Like all women of the people, she was free to choose her own husband from among any who might ask for her, but the man she selected would make her part of his tribe in some place far from the Blue Mountains.

  No, Epona said silently, stubbornly, inside herself. Not me. It will be different for me; I have my own plans.

  It WILL be different for me. I will make it so!

  Nematona brought her a thick fur robe and folded it around her body. Pale-haired Uiska, of the colorless eyes and snowy skin, pinned the robe closed with Rigantona’s brooch, a massive bronze circle incised with a curvilinear design that drew the eye along the endless turnings of existence. It was a favorite pattern of the people, the representation of life flowing into life.

  Redheaded Tena stroked the fur robe. “This was made from the hide of a pregnant she-bear,” she told Epona. “Very strong magic. It has been saved for a long time for the daughter of Rigantona.”

  The robe was heavy and had a rank smell. When Epona wrinkled her nose, Tena chuckled. “Awful, isn’t it? I suspect it needs airing, Epona. When the Hellene traders come after snowmelt, get some kinnamon from them and ru
b into the fur. Until then, you really don’t have to wear it; it’s just a symbol of your new status.”

  “By now everyone in the village knows my new status,” Epona replied. “But I will wear it, in spite of the smell. It isn’t as bad as the odor of the squatting pit or the dye cauldrons, and as you say, fresh air will help.” She could imagine the way her sisters’ eyes would shine when she came home wearing that splendid fur, and the fun they would have dressing up in it. Even Rigantona had nothing better.

  Nematona opened the door of the lodge and Epona was astonished to see pearlescent dawn above the mountains. Had the night passed so quickly?

  Of course—one must never forget the power of the spirits.

  Mindful of the responsibilities of her profession, one of the gutuiters took Epona by the shoulders and faced her toward the rising sun. It was time for the final phase of her initiation into womanhood.

  Uiska began it, in the solemn teaching voice all druii employed when giving instruction. “The sacrifice has been offered and accepted; the portents are good. You will be a fertile woman. The gateway of life has been opened within you, so you can enjoy bedsports and lifemaking with a man without fear of pain, and your children will begin with pleasure and enter thisworld smiling.

  “But another gateway has been opened as well. You are now an adult member of the people, which means the spirit within you has been awakened. From now on you must always have an ear turned inward to listen for its voice, the voice that speaks without words. When it commands, you must always obey. That is wisdom.

  “We do not encourage a child to listen to its spirit, because the spirit of a child, newly housed in flesh after living in the otherworlds, is playful and giddy, like one who drinks too much wine for the first time. It lacks good judgment. We do not call to awaken that spirit until both it and the body have had time to mature. For you that season is at hand, and now your spirit is fully awake. You have become a free woman of the Kelti, Epona, daughter of Rigantona. Never forget!” Her voice lashed the whip of command.

  She continued, “There are times when the spirit will warn you for no reason you can see, but always pay heed to such warnings. To be deaf to the voice of the spirit within is to be crippled, a burden to others for as long as you live. It is better to have been born with a physical deformity and been exposed on the mountainside so your spirit could seek better housing. But you are not crippled, Epona; you can hear the voice. Like sight and smell, touch and taste and hearing, it is a sense to guide you. Use it well.”

  Epona nodded. That was what had happened, then; in the moment when the shapechanger appeared to be a wolf and she snarled back at him, the spirit within had spoken to her, telling her to show defiance.

  “But how does my spirit know these things?” she asked Nematona, who was standing to one side, watching her with a grave smile. “Where does its knowledge come from?”

  “From the source of all wisdom,” the senior gutuiter replied. “From the great fire of life that is shared by every living thing, in thisworld and in the otherworlds. The spirit within you is just one spark from that fire, but through it you are given access to the accumulated knowledge of the whole, if you will only learn to listen.”

  Epona frowned, trying to stretch her thoughts wide enough to embrace understanding. “Are you saying the spirit in me is kin to the spirits in the animals and plants? How can that be?”

  Tena spoke up, taking her turn in the instruction. “All life is part of one life,” she said, “and that one is sacred to all. We worship it in each of its many forms. It animates us and we share in its immortality. The spirit known in thislife as Epona will die and be reborn, slip in and out of the flesh, move from world to world, as we all shall, but it will continue to partake of life because we are all parts of the whole.

  “The great spirit of life has many faces. In summer we worship it in the form of the goddess, for spring and summer are the seasons of the female, the time of birth and harvest, the celebration of warmth and light and fertility, life renewing itself.

  “Snowseason is the season of the male, the hunter of the autumn and the craftsman of the winter, the provider who shelters and protects. It is the time for testing, for strength and endurance, and for the death that precedes birth.

  “Death is nothing to fear, for life comes after. Spring follows winter. Morning follows the night. Be joyous and unafraid, Epona, for you are part of immortal life itself, and the great fire burns in you.”

  Tena stretched out her hand and laid it palm down on Epona’s forehead. Without conscious volition, Epona closed her eyes and crossed her hands over her heart in response. A radiance filled her; a commitment to her place in the endless cycle; a pleasure in being part of the whole.

  The gutuiters walked back to the chief’s lodge with her, not surrounding her as guards, but following one pace behind as an escort of honor. As she walked, Epona felt little twinges of pain and something warm trickled down her legs. By the time she reached her family’s lodge her thighs were sticky and she could smell blood.

  At the door of the house the gutuiters saluted her and turned away. Over her shoulder, Tena said, “Take care not to dream of a man nextnight,” and the other two laughed. Nematona laughed like the rustling of leaves; Uiska’s chuckle echoed the bubbling of brook water.

  In accordance with the ancient custom, the older members of Epona’s family had kept watch for her through the night. Toutorix had honored her by dressing for her arrival in a fresh linen tunic and new woolen cloak, Rigantona’s finest weaving, in the red and green plaid of his family. Around his neck he wore the heavy gold neckring of a proven warrior chief, and massive bronze bracelets reinforced the strength of his wrists. The hair on his head had been newly bleached with lime paste, disguising the fact that it was no longer ruddy gold but streaked with silver, thick with the frost that obliges a man to measure his age in winters rather than summers. His cheeks were clean shaven, as was customary for a man of noble rank, but beneath them his mustache and beard were as luxuriant as ever. Toutorix wore an air of aggressive masculinity as easily as he wore his tartan cloak, though his broad shoulders were beginning to stoop and the muscles in his legs had grown stringy.

  Married women still made approaches to him and many children in the Blue Mountains bore the stamp of the lord of the tribe on their faces: the passionate proud features and sky-colored eyes.

  Over his tunic Toutorix sported a broad leather belt ornamented with bronze plates and squeezing him a bit more tightly than it had in his youth. But he was not fat; no man of the people would willingly allow himself to grow fat, to suffer the ridicule and punishment meted out to one who lost his shape and could not fasten his belt. Seen casually, he was the same powerful patriarch his family had always known, and Epona was warmed by the sight of him.

  Arrayed in her best linen gown, Rigantona stood beside her husband. She was seasons younger than the chieftain, but as women did not bleach their hair it was possible to see that frost was making inroads in her yellow braids. Yet her shoulders were broad and proudly carried, and the breasts that had suckled many children were still relatively firm. When she raised her arms the muscles rippled in them as they had done when she was a girl, so skilled in the use of sword and spear that no boy her age could stand against her. No longer did she train, stripped, to fight beside her husband if needed, however; by now she was content to enjoy a degree of leisure and wear all the jewelry she possessed wrapped around her neck and stacked on her arms and fingers. The autumn of her life was a pleasant season for Rigantona.

  Epona saluted the chief, then went directly to her mother to show she had returned the brooch. Rigantona examined it thoroughly before looking at her daughter’s face at all.

  “I am told I did well,” Epona remarked, knowing better than to expect warmth or praise from her mother. Rigantona was not like other mothers. “I might have done better if I had known what to expect,” the young woman added.

  “The rituals are mysteries,” Ri
gantona responded. “Tests, to see how well we face the unknown. Did you cry out?”

  “No.”

  “Good. Toutorix was worried about you, but I told him no daughter of mine would prove a weakling.” She turned away from Epona and lifted the brooch to the firelight so she could admire its design once more.

  Epona started to get a drink of water from the embossed bronze hydra on its tripod by the door, a luxury purchased from the Hellenes and now copied in every household in the village, but Alator was there ahead of her, anxious to fill her cup. His eyes glowed with pleasure at being the first to offer a drink to the new woman in the family. Epona smiled at her younger brother, remembering how she had hurried in the same way to be the first to do a service for their older brother Okelos, when he returned, pale but swaggering, from his man-making.

  She longed to wash the sticky blood from her thighs and crawl onto her bedshelf, but there were still rituals to be observed, and her dry throat burned with thirst. She said the customary thanks to the spirit of the water and carefully scattered drops in the four directions before draining the cup. Then her family lined up to congratulate her, and there was a small feast.

  She was exhausted, but she would not show it. Stand tall! urged the spirit within. Your new life begins.

  Chapter 2

  Epona spent the early morning in fitful slumber, never deep enough to be transported into the dreamworld. Instead she wandered through a shadowed place where the real and the unreal melted together and were wrenched apart by something cruel, with an animal’s face. At last she gave up the effort to sleep altogether and sat up on her bedshelf.

  It was the first day of her life as a woman.

  She ground her fists into her eyes to rub the mist from them. I wonder if I look different now? she thought. Will Goibban like me?

  Before leaving her bedshelf she gazed contentedly at the chief’s lodge in which she lived, appreciating it anew after spending the night in the magic house. Her home was a large rectangular hall, built of snugly fitted birch logs and topped with a steep thatched roof. An opening at either end, just below the ridgepole, allowed light and air. As was appropriate for the chosen leader of his people, the house of Toutorix possessed a carved rooftree, its surface covered with intertwining patterns of life, with symbols for the more powerful spirits, with mystic signs to reinforce authority and fertility. These were carved not only on the downward face of the rooftree, but all the way around, even where they were hidden by the thatch, for they were meant for other than human eyes.